French award-winning gay-themed drama directed by Abdel Kechiche. The film follows the 17-year-old closeted student Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) as she pursues a passionate and fiery relationship with an older and 'out' blue-haired lesbian called Emma (Léa Seydoux). Throughout their relationship the two young women learn a lot about the pains and joys of being in love and the importance of staying true to oneself.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Blue Is The Warmest Colour is a rewarding film that holds your interest for its three hour running time, although I wondered if it was a bit long. The first hour is outstanding, showing Adele in her final year at school and hesitating between boys and girls. It is painful but somehow conveys the freshness of these tentative encounters, firstly with a boy. This episode was very touching, and made you feel for both parties. Adele is a girl you like straight off the bat; she's so natural, so sincere and feeling - really an ideal person. I'm not surprised the director Abdellatif Kechiche felt so compelled to tell her story. When she meets Emma it continues to be thoroughly magical in feeling, but I liked it a bit less as the relationship began to show signs of strain. The turn of events in the last hour feels slightly forced to me, without wanting to give too much away. Both actresses are wonderful, but first honours must go to Adele Exarchopoulos, as Adele (the original comic on which it is based is called 'La Vie d'Adele'). She is simply wonderful in front of the camera, and you completely believe everything she does. Lea Seydoux is also excellent, but the role is somewhat secondary. The focus on Adele is a bit like that on Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under The Influence, or Emily Watson in Breaking The Waves, and the film also reminded me a bit of the gay male lovers in Weekend. There is the same rawness, the same unflinching gaze at sexuality and emotion. However I did feel it was a little too relentlessly shot in close-up, perhaps, and its setting of intimacy right next to party or street scenes with dancing became a little overused, at the expense of showing us more of Adele's home life, for instance, or tying up other threads in her life - her school friends etc.Read more ›

I honestly don`t know where to begin in praising this all but flawless French film.Occasionally - though not often enough - a film comes along which leaves one open-mouthed in wonder and gratitude, that one this exceptional and this intelligent is still capable of being being made, and that it is receiving the generally rave reviews it so plainly deserves.Much has been made of the lengthy naked sexual scenes, as well as the two leading actresses` complaints about the director`s methods - which they have since modifed, I`m glad to say, being rightly proud of their performances in this beautiful and honest work of art. Thankfully, as much has been made of the unique nature of this masterpiece, as I believe it to be.Adele Exarchopoulos plays Adele, a sexually confused but personable, intelligent teenager on the verge of womanhood. To state so much so baldly is to come nowhere near to describing the astonishing brilliance of this actress`s portrayal, with not a single moment where she looks as if she`s `acting`, such is her naturalness, which never becomes tiresome or repetitive (even as her character`s does at times - work that one out!). This must in lage part be down to the relentlessness and sensitivity of director Abdellatif Kechiche, who doesn`t put a foot wrong during the three hours over which this deceptively simple tale unfolds.The slightly older young woman Adele falls for, and who falls for her too, is played with restained, pitch-perfect warmth and likeability by the experienced Lea Seydoux, whose eyes are as expressive as anything I`ve seen for a long time, and who possesses an almost languidly hypnotic way of showing her character`s various traits and foibles.Read more ›

Romance movies, be they comedy or drama (or those awful Judd Apatow fusions), rarely show the full spectrum of tenderness and horror that love can do to a person (and when they do it's usually sugar-coated and 'Hollywood', such as most things adapted from the book by Nicholas Sparks). With love comes happiness and security but when it is suddenly taken away from you there is only hollowness and despair.

Adele is a high school senior pressured into having sex with boys to appease her nasty "friends". She enjoys it, but still feels that it is wrong. A split-second encounter in the street with blue-haired artist Emma leads to love at first sight and Adele can't get her out of her mind, fantasizing about her in bed at night. Lesbian urges grow inside her and she finally builds the courage to find Emma and falls head-over-heels in love with her.

Adele's sexuality (and, by extension, Emma's too) causes problems with her school friends, her family (a scene in which she was disowned was unwisely cut from the final movie), and Emma's own circle. Her jealousy eventually leads to critical trust issues. It's a sin that everybody is guilty of at some point.

Abdellatif Kechiche fills the movie with very long, following takes which highlight the mundane existence of Adele as she longs for love. The sex scenes are passionate and believable, punctuated with moans and gasps rather than music and are shot in realistic light which is not too unflattering. None of the actresses wear make-up, allowing their full range of facial expressions to show their true emotions, including messy, greasy hair. The sex scenes are nothing to get offended about, they are tasteful and honest and only a prude would object.Read more ›